Rosters

Fnatic

NiP

Predictions

Fnatic are using wenton instead of olofmeister, I’m sure most of you already know that, but it seems like people underestimate fnatic just because lof isn’t playing, their odds against Astralis were ridiculous – something about 20-25% and fnatic won that of course, around 50% against ENVYUS, I actually thought that ENVYUS will take this match since they practiced quite a lot recently, but fnatic also won that match. This time fnatic are facing NiP and the matches between these two teams were always extremely close even when olof played, another thing is that NiP are playing really well now, not to mention that they actually won Dreamhack in Malmo recently.

NiP’s results are better overall and they will play with the original roster, I also think they could beat fnatic if olof would play, now it should be even easier, not too easy though, I’d say it should be around 60-40 for NiP and I suggest a low bet on them.

Conclusion

This is a very tricky BO3 here. Given that it is ECS both teams will definitely fight to win so should be a good match. Head to head, these two go waaay back of course, matches between these two most of the time are really close. These two have played like 70 maps between eachother or something, obviously different rosters here and there, however the core of both has remained the same of course. Right now given the circumstances both teams are in, I’d have to favor NiP a bit here. I am not a huge NiP fan to be honest, I do not think they are the most solid of teams, especially if GTR and F0rest go missing, the whole team just does not function most of the time. NiP has shown great improvement here however, and given that Fnatic are not looking too good, at all and are using Wenton instead of Olof is definitely a big reason as to why I will favor NiP. When Plessen was firstly supposed to standin for Olof I did not think that it would make too much of a difference, obviously you can’t replace Olof, however the results Fnatic and performances they provided were just not up to par, hopefully Wenton can change it, however I doubt it as it was the whole team underperforming and not just Plessen dragging them down. You can not count Fnatic out however, they can more than win this, they are the better team at the end of the day individually and even without Olof I am confident individuals like JW and Flusha especially can step up and demolish NiP here, it’s just a matter if will it happen or not. 60-40 NiP here.

Fnatic are of course weaker than they have been before, but you have to remember this is an all Swedish match up, and games between these 2 are always incredibly close. Fnatic with wenton still look worse than with olofm, but they seem more rounded, they seem to be able to play their game a lot better, and in 4 maps they have played with wenton so far, they have won 3 and only lost 1, a poor result against astralis on Train. It is hard to tell how good or bad fnatic were against Envy, as Envy are really poor right now. Cache was incredibly close, and fnatic should not have won this map, but their experience got them over the line. The best thing about the pick up of wenton is it seems flusha and JW have been playing an awful lot better. They have been unleashed, and that is a scary thing for NiP. We saw what happened with NiP when they lost clutch rounds against a poor VP, they lost the game, and with this game being incredibly close, although I think NiP the better side, if fnatic are below 40% odds, you cannot really bet against them.